In recent years, increasing rates of theft of cars, vans and other motor vehicles have pointed up the inadequacy of door locks and ignition locks in preventing entry into and theft of such vehicles. In response, a variety of auxiliary devices have been proposed and marketed for use as additional deterrents to motor vehicle theft. Typically, such devices include a hardened steel bar arranged to be locked to the vehicle steering wheel and having a length which extends beyond the outer rim of the steering wheel to an extent that free movement of the bar, and thereby the steering wheel, are impeded. Thus, while the bar is in place the steering wheel cannot be freely rotated, because the extended end of the bar strikes other adjacent structures. As a result, the car or other vehicle cannot be driven with the bar locked in place.
Removal of such auxiliary devices, without the proper key to unlock the device, is impeded by provision of structural elements which are resistant to sawing or cutting and a variety of locking arrangements which may use hardened components or be enclosed to promote inaccessibility, or both. However, in practice it has been found that while it is difficult for a thief to cut, break or otherwise remove such auxiliary bars themselves, the steering wheel itself is a weak link in the protection chain. While many of these prior devices are relatively indestructible, the steering wheel is not. As a result, an automobile intended to be protected is actually subject to theft by the simple expedient of cutting through the plastic covered steering wheel rim and removing the protection bar via the cut. The automobile is then steerable and the steering wheel may actually have suffered only relatively minor damage and may be usable as is or with a piece of tape applied over the cut in order to hold the adjacent cut edges of the rim in circular alignment.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide improved security devices and, particularly, security devices which, when locked in place on the steering wheel of a motor vehicle, are both difficult to remove and protective of the steering wheel itself, so as to provide additional security.
Additional objects are to provide new and improved steering wheel security devices which are effective to provide protection against motor vehicle theft, while at the same time avoiding one or more disadvantages of security devices as previously available.